Posts by T-Rex Neb

OnlyOffice treated to an update – and fresh plugins

Try SoftMaker FreeOffice 21 Plan. I find it to be pretty great.

SoftMaker FreeOffice 2021 FTW

I use this on my Windows, Linux, and MacOS boxes. It's a great product w/ the look and feel of MS Office. Just make sure you install the MS TTFonts. I'm surprised this article didn't cover this suite.

Official: EU users can swerve App Store and download iOS apps from the web

If people want to side load crap onto their phone, they can buy an Android

To say that Apple is monopolistic and anti-competitive is complete horse puckey. Apple's share of the mobile phone market as of Mar 24, is 28.46%. It's share of the smartphone market is even less at 24.7% (CAO 4Q23). Heaven forfend they gatekeep access to the App Store, and charge 30% for the privilege of selling on it. Nobody's forcing you to make apps for the iPhone, and nobody's forcing you to buy an iPhone (and most people don't). Thank goodness for over-weening gov't regulators putting their sweaty hands on the scales of commerce.

Linux Mint 20.3 appears – now with more Mozilla flavor: Why this distro switched Firefox defaults back to Google

As an inveterate Mac user, I choose to run elementaryOS on my linux laptops. It just works, and I can install the software I need from either .deb, snap, or flatpak sources. As for LibreOffice, the UI is horrible. I really like Softmaker FreeOffice 2021.

It's your Loki day: The Reg takes Elementary OS Jólnir for a quick test drive

Re: POV

Well, let me be your huckleberry, then. I've used Macs since 1984, PCs from 1988-2012 (w/ a 2 yr hiatus from 92-94), and Linux in various flavors for the past 11 years or so. I'm getting ready to start IT work in a windows environment in the near future. ( I got used to Win 7, but I can't stand Win 10. ) I currently have 4 macs and 3 Linux machines. I'm running Mojave, Big Sur, and Monterey on my Macs and elementary OS 6.1 and PopOS! 21.04 on my Linux laptops.

I do the majority of my production in MacOS, because the programs req'd just work. I really like eOS because its look and feel is so Mac-like, and it doesn't slam a bunch of apps onto your system that require foreknowledge to competently operate like Mint Cinnamon, or Ubuntu (whether Xfce or Budgie).The pitfall to eOS is that it's a complete reinstall between major versions Luckily, now that everything's in the cloud, it's not as big of a deal as it could be, but it's still a real time suck. That said, on my Lenovo ThinkPad L420 that's running PopOS! 21.04, it won't upgrade to 22.04 for some damn reason or another so there's that.

I've multibooted old macbooks w/ OS X, Win 7, Win 10, Xubuntu, and elementary OS, and I've run VMs of various distros, and I can tell you that I like the UIX of elementary OS, Ubuntu Budgie, and PopOS!, in that order.

I like that I can pick my own office-suite in eOS, instead of being saddled w/ LibreOffice as a fait accompli. I like that I can install FreeOffice, TeamViewer, ExpanDrive, Opera, and Edge as debs; Morgen, VLC, Todoist, RamBox, and BlueMail as snaps; and Steam as a Flatpak.

I suppose I could install Zoom on this eOS box as .deb, fiddling w/ photos is something I do on my Macs and no one I know or assist needs a screen reader.

I like Linux, specifically eOS, but for me, it's still not as a great as MacOS in terms of just getting my shit done.

Re: General question

I'm sure I don't understand your comment. In eOS, "Files' allows you to see your files in three possible ways, as icons; as vertically expandable, sortable list; and in a horizontally expandable list. Please elucidate.

Midwest tornado destroys Amazon warehouse, killing six after worker 'told not to leave'

Re: Corporate manslaughter?

Yeah, seeing as how I live in tornado alley, but whatever. And your comment about an agenda is much like the pot calling the kettle black. But you do you, big 'un.

Re: Sh*t happens

Dollars to donuts Amazon's structure was up to code.

Re: Corporate manslaughter?

WRT tornadoes becoming more violent, I encourage you to read up on the 1925 Tri-State Tornado (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_tornado_outbreak#cite_ref-Losses_3-0) that killed at least 747, injured around 2300, and caused $2.42 billion (in 2021 dollars) worth of damage. And according to The Economist, tornadoes are not increasing in frequency.

LibreOffice 7.2 release candidate reveals effort to be Microsoft-compatible

SoftMaker FreeOffice 2018 FTW!

Being a Mac guy, and having 4 linux laptops, and having used MS Office for 20 years at work, I find SoftMaker FreeOffice 2018 pretty great. The look and feel and configurability make it a much easier transition from MS Office products. LibreOffice, regardless of it's technical attributes, looks and feels clunky. It's as if the UIX is stuck in the StarOffice mode, forever.

Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community

Hah. That's funny right there.

Re: Link to Debian Non-Free

Thank you for this. I noodled around Debian's website and it wasn't readily apparent.

Re: Yes. Hit meet nail head

Regarding printers, though, 9.99 times out of 10, you'll find a printer driver for either Win10 or MacOS. I did find a linux driver (actually 2 for the printer and 2 for the scanner) for my Epson ET-4760, installed them and was able to successfully print a test page. Nothing prints after that. Errors out every time. It will print, however for my MBPs running 11.2 and my iMac running 10.14, no issues whatsoever. Talk about frustrating.

Re: My personal rant about all Linux variants

You can get MS Office and Photoshop on a Mac, which is a non-MS platform, so where are you going with this?

Re: My personal rant about all Linux variants

Love my Macs, being using them since 1984. Also built my own WinXP boxes that died from cruft. Used WinXP and Win7 at work for 20 years. Dabbled in Hackintoshes. Currently have 4 macs and 4 linux laptops. Hate Win10 and its ilk. I use my macs for most of my production and my linux laptops for fiddling and learning Linux, although I do use them for chat/email/surfing/calendaring as req'd. Glad I never tried to put Debian on a laptop, it'd probably drive me to distraction. Love elementaryOS and how it looks/feels/works right out the box, w/ some added apps that can be easily found and installed. Love mucking about in the CLI. Love the fact that if the Linux machine borks, I can re-install, no harm, no foul, as all of my data's in the cloud. I will say that the build quality of my ThinkPad, EliteBook, ZBook, and Latitude is nowhere near the build quality of my MacBook Pros (currently running Big Sur Beta, thank you very much). That said, the way Apple breaks the UIX during system upgrades is frustrating for this audiobook aficionado. I get my library books using OverDrive Media Console (ODM), which has a 32-bit app for 10.14 and for Windows. So I keep my 27" iMac at 10.14 so that my DVD ripping software (for archival purposes), my DVD converting software (for archival purposes), my ondesoft audiobook converter (for archival purposes), and my ODM keep working. I used WinODM on my Linux VM for a while, but after a while, something corrupted with the Wine/winetricks/Windows Media Player 10 install and it quit working, which is frustrating as all get out.

This thread is such a fun read for me, as I've been chipping away at using/learning Linux/FOSS for years (including trying to install a WiFi driving using ndiswrapper).

Re: Small market share of Debian?

A metric scheisse-ton.

Re: Debian installer

Of course laptop users want to install over WiFi. It's not unfortunate, it's a feature! Being tethered to an ethernet cable completely defeats the whole raison d'être of implied portability. Why wouldn't they expect the WiFi to be usable out of the box?

re: Debian is probably better suited to more technical users.

Which is exactly the reason I'm running elementaryOS on all 4 of my Linux laptops, even though I'm in the command line every day. But it'd be better if Debian was better suited to all users, not technical users (even though I'm using Debian's grandson) because it would grow the user base. I have a tremendous interest in learning how things work, and also have an interest in using the computer to work, hence my choice. You do you, and I'll do me, but I think it be better for Debian overall if it--and by extension it's user base--was less insular and more ecuminical in terms of drivers out of the box.

Re: Not for noobs

Look, if you don't care about the noobs, then they won't care about you, and whatever you treasure will just fade away from lack of exposure.

Re: Two ways of looking at things.

And there you have it. Linux as a religion vs Linux as a tool. Beware zealots!

Re: Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'?

No, it's not beside the point. The casual user either wants to easily install a distro on a(n extra) computer that is starting to act up or age out due to the Windows tax. They want to fiddle with it before they decide to commit to Linux as their production OS. If they're going to buy a new machine, they'll either buy a Windows box or a Mac. No casual user buys a computer with Linux installed on it, because a casual user's not going drop that kind of coin on an unknown quantity. Only the established Linux user buys a new computer with Linux pre-installed.